


Looking for Stars

by Syksy



Category: Elfquest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syksy/pseuds/Syksy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skywise has a lot to think about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking for Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marycrawford](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycrawford/gifts).



> Thank you to Ysabet and J for betaing, any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

The plains stretched out around him, seemingly endless in the darkness. It was darker than Skywise could ever remember it being, even in the dank tunnels that the trolls for some unfathomable reason seemed to prefer to live in. His head knew that it only felt that way, but his heart didn't care. He missed his wolfblood. He forgot, quite often still, that a part of him was gone and would never come back. This night wasn't any different from countless others that he had spent, mostly content, after losing it. The difference was all in him. Being Ember's mentor had forced him to face the change, in a way that being her sire's friend never had. Cutter hadn't needed reminding, guidance, discipline. Ember did, and suddenly Skywise wasn't so sure he had enough to give.

He had watched Ember grow, watched her resemble her sire more and more. It wasn't that she didn't take things seriously; certain things mattered to her very much. But she didn't sit still and contemplate everything like her brother did. The world, and everything in it, was there, and if she needed to know the whys and hows of something, she asked, happily confident that someone would have all the answers. Her life was in the doing and being. She believed in the Now like she believed in breathing. 

Cutter had had that once. Skywise supposed he himself had had it too, but it had never been that simple, not really. Other interests and other concerns had interfered, had taken him out of the Now every once in a while and he hadn't minded that. For Cutter losing it must have been something much more terrible than he could imagine. And he had always been good at imagining. 

Ember was so very like the playful cub that Cutter had been in the days and nights before Joyleaf and Bearclaw had died. That image of Cutter tagging at his heels was still fresh in Skywise's memory, while it must seem unfathomably distant to Cutter himself. Ember was going to have to grow up too swiftly, just like her father had. Yet another similarity between the two, as if he needed any more. A pattern repeating itself, like the turning of the seasons. Skywise remembered with bittersweet clarity how hard Cutter had tried not to show that the responsibility frightened him. He remembered too, when his chief had finally let his walls down —when he had admitted that he wasn't sure he could do it all. 

They had been alone on a hunt, not having much luck but not especially minding it. Both of them had had other worries and it was relaxing to go through the familiar rituals of tracking and stalking. Suddenly Cutter had turned to him, tears in his eyes, and started to stumble through his fears, as if something was forcing the words out of his mouth. They were broken things, stilted and breathy and so very earnest. It had hurt Skywise to listen, and as he had never been very good at dealing with pain, he had done the only thing he could think of that always made _him_ forget all other thoughts.

It had been sweet — hurried and clumsy at times, but sweet. Skywise had never cared much about who he shared pleasure with, but that time had been different. Everything was different with Cutter. The soul name and all it meant must have been part of it, but there was more. Cutter mattered to him in a way no one else could, and that simple fact made all the difference. Not in any outward form, but inside, where he was almost as young and almost as confused as his friend.

He had fancied Cutter a little in love with him for a while. It had been strangely exhilarating, thinking of it, worrying about it. And one lazy afternoon, when they had lain tangled together, sweaty and happy and tired in a nook of the father tree he had realised that nothing had changed. This was just one thing more they shared, one more facet of their love. It wasn't any more important than the others, and as season followed season it turned out to be one of the less defining ones, but it was, and always would be, theirs.

Skywise wasn't sure if he had been relieved or disappointed. Love was supposed to be fun, something to be enjoyed at will and to gladden both body and spirit. _Recognition_ was the dangerous, inexplicable force that would sweep an elf away on it's tide. Recognition frightened him; love never had. But he had had a feeling that Cutter's love might resemble that more than the regular kind. His chief didn't do things by halves.

They had ended up much like lifemates still. The bond they had was effortless, weightless and comforting. He had never seen Leetah as any kind of a threat to that. Quite the opposite in fact. She had completed them, or at least completed Cutter. Skywise hadn't realized that there was anything missing, but she had fitted in so perfectly that it was hard now to remember where the hole had been. Sometimes he wondered if he too might still be missing a piece of himself, but the thought of admitting any more beings into his soul quickly chased away any such notions.

They had dreamt high, both of them, but Cutter's dreams had always been earthbound, rooted in a way Skywise hadn't really understood then, and understood even less now. It had been meant this way all along, he supposed, the path coming clear only in hindsight like a puzzling animal trail, which only when followed to its conclusion suddenly made sense. Cutter had the cubs and the tribe, mortal and tangible for all their glory. Skywise had something else, something he was just starting to discover. The meaning of "forever" was strange to someone who had lived his life in the Now, but even if the word was frightening, it was also very, very wonderful.

Ember didn't need that, though. She didn't need a once Wolfrider trying to become —what? A High One? Her tribe already had one of those. And anyway, that wasn't what Skywise wanted either, at least not yet. He needed to be a Wolfrider for a while still, for Ember. Her father, who meant more to him than any elf ever had, had asked him to. There would be time to find new ways to be. Actually, now there was infinite time.

The sky was overcast tonight. He couldn't see the stars. But he knew they were there, waiting, just like his soul's brother was; somewhere far away, fighting for the dream they all shared, in their own way.


End file.
